Guest Post, Excerpt and Giveaway: The Death Skull (Relic Defender #2) by Cassiel Knight

Published: May 6th, 2014

Description: 18+

Fallen angel Marisol Asheni Fell when she unwisely chose to follow Lucifer. Unlike many of her fellow angels, she has no desire for redemption. Instead, she prefers fighting the followers of the Dark when they step over the line. Except, in the deepest part of her soul, she longs for a reason to stop fighting.

Jackson’s only loyalty is to himself and his mother, but even he has boundaries he won’t cross. When his last job threatened the life of a young woman, he tossed aside the lucrative pay, and finds himself fighting evil. He’s attracted to Mari despite her hard, seemingly emotionless edge. And while Mari finds the tall human reluctantly appealing, she has no intention of finding herself in a relationship with a human.

Brought together by the Archangel Michael, they must find and destroy the crystal Mayan Death Skull before the son of Lucifer uses the skull to destroy the world’s leaders and throw the world into chaos to begin Hell on Earth.

Their search for the Death Skull takes them from Chicago to Central America to the lost city of Lubaantun in Belize, the heart of the Mayan civilization, and into a battle for their souls.

GUEST POST

Fallen Angels: Blurring the Line Between Good and Evil

I’ve always loved angels. You know, the ones who lived in Heaven, who were mostly female and wore flowing white gowns, fluffy wings with the beautiful white feathers and some even had those lovely golden halos. 

Much later, I learned there were other angels. Ones not so white, not so pure, not so kind or loving, and they most certainly did not live in Heaven. 

But they used to. 

I can’t recall the first time I read about fallen angels. Once I learned of fallen angels, I was intrigued by the notion that angels could be, and were, kicked out of Heaven. And did they want to return? If so, how does that happen? 

Most people are familiar with the rebellion of Lucifer whose name means "light-bearer" and who was referred to as the "morning star." He was the first angel to fall. Some stories say he wanted to be like God and wanted to be worshipped as God. Another story says he disliked and was jealous of humans. Thought that God should not have forced the angels, his first children, to serve the mortals and that God should not have loved humans more than the angels. For these reasons, he was banished from Heaven. 

But he didn’t go alone. 

In the first story, of Lucifer wanting to be like God, it was actually the archangel Michael who cast out Lucifer. Some of the angels followed him by resisting God's power and authority in a huge, horrible battle that decimated the heavens turning angel against angel. In the second story, Lucifer was so charming, so full of charisma he convinced one-third of the angelic host that God had abandoned them and humans were worthless. When he Fell, they Fell with him. 

Once they did, they were no longer angels. This is when the stories say they became demons. And Lucifer began to be known as Satan, a more common term for the ruler of hell. 

When I began the Relic Defender series (Book 1, Key of Solomon, Book 2, The Death Skull, I knew I wanted to explore fallen angels. Specifically, fallen angels who no longer support Lucifer. Do they still have good in them--can they be redeemed and find their way back to Heaven? Do they want to? 

For me, the blurred line between good and evil can sometimes be about intent. Have you heard this before? We all know murdering someone is evil, right? But what if you have to kill someone to protect your child? Or stealing from a grocery store is bad but is it if it is the only way you can feed your family? This is outside all the options there are for these things--what if it comes down to one or the other as noted above? 

For this series, in book 1, I created a fallen angel who was on his own path to redemption. He Fell for all the same reasons as Lucifer did--pride, lust and rebellion. However, Mikos realized he made a mistake. He’d lost his faith, allowed his own pride to rule his heart and head. I enjoyed exploring Mikos’s redemption. But what I liked best was putting the Archangel Michael, the same Archangel who originally tossed out the Fallen, in charge of Mikos and the other fallen. 

In The Death Skull, book 2, I had a different challenge of that of a fallen angel who no longer follows Lucifer yet she has no desire to return to Heaven or repenting. Yet, does that make her evil? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out. J 

I hope you enjoyed this bit about fallen angels. If you like angels, why do you? What attracts you to stories about them?

EXCERPT

TOUR SCHEDULE

Jackson leaned against the gymnasium door. He flexed his right knee, which was still sore and tender from his near-death slide down a mountain a couple of weeks ago. Once off the slopes and in the hillside city of Nagarkot, he’d been pronounced fine by the local doctor. The little joyride down the mountainside had left Jackson with a banged up kneecap and strained and bruised neck and shoulder muscles. Not much more severe than the normal scrapes and cuts he’d gotten over the last six months since he’d turned over a new leaf and joined a band of do-gooders to save the world.

How had his life changed so fast from the neatly roped-and-tied, orderly affair to the messy, knotted circle it had become? Six months for a complete turnaround was fast for a man who had been perfectly content as an unscrupulous mercenary working for the rich and powerful.

Especially the rich.

Now, instead of traveling the world to work for men willing to part with their ill- gotten money, he lived in a goddamn huge mansion with an angel who turned down Heaven, an ex-exotic dancer with a sassy mouth and a destiny to save mankind, a shape- shifting rock with aspirations to be a 1920s mobster, a cocky tech expert and—

Her.

The woman currently kicking the crap out of the poor punching bag. Correction. Not a woman. Fallen angel. Demon, actually.

Christ. Jackson swept a hand through his hair. When he found trouble, he went all the way. Said woman, Marisol Asheni—a flowery name for a hard-ass demon—struck the bag, the force of her blow rocking the heavy sack violently. He half expected the damn thing to crash to the floor.

Even as she pounded the hell out of the bag, her body flowed in lovely symmetry. Much like the woman herself, each of her movements was precise, effortless and made with minimum motions. And a helluva lot of grace.

Her taut ass flexed and smoothed under the formfitting tight shorts women—God love them—seemed to favor. Long legs, tanned and straight, looked silky under the soft lights. Her waist was bare, and when she moved he thought he caught a glimpse of something flashing at her navel.

Holy hell, the woman had a belly-button piercing. When had she gotten the damn thing? He sure hadn’t noticed it the last time he’d seen her work out. His appreciative gaze tracked a path up her body, flowing past her curved hips to her uptilted breasts, up the smooth column of her throat. Despite her features being too austere for true beauty and marred only slightly by the iron determination in her square chin, she possessed a wildness he found fascinating.

Her auburn hair, woven into a tight braid, swayed back and forth as she moved. The glowing strands flickered with fire—filled with gold, rich coppers and hot reds.

Any adjective used to describe fire fit Marisol Asheni to a T. As in trouble.

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About the author:

In the job that pays the mortgage and allows her to indulge in her real passion, writing, Cassiel Knight works in the beautiful state of Oregon. Crazy-passionate about the romance writing industry, Cassiel has a paranormal romance series featuring fallen angels and demons from Samhain Publishing, an urban fantasy through Lyrical Press and a Egyptian mythology/archeology series with Champagne Book Group. She writes paranormal romances with kick-assitude that blend archeology and mythology – just a few of her favorite things.

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